HOW THE @UNDP DISCRIMINATES JOURNALISTS IN MACEDONIA ON PARTISAN GROUNDS. PLEASE SHARE

English version (la version française suit l'anglaise)

This is the testimonial of a well known investigative journalist from Macedonia, Meri Jordanovska who used to work for A1 TV, the last broadcaster critical of the government’s work in Macedonia, which was shut in 2011 in an extremely controversial move, revealing the implications of the executive power in the judiciary.

Jordanovska then started to work for Fokus, the last independent newspaper. The owner of this paper lost his life in a car accident, never elucidated to this day. Due to this tragic event, the paper is now out of resources to print.

Today in Macedonia there are no mainstream opposition media. The only exceptions are few informative web portals. This smothering of the media landscape of the country has been denounced by all the international institutions or organizations such as Reporters without borders, Freedom House, to name only a few.

In this testimonial Jordanovska reveals the collaborationism of the international organizations with the authoritarian regime in Macedonia, in this case the development agency of the United Nations, UNDP.

And this is not an isolated case. A few years ago, one young activist who participated in a civil protest against the construction of a church in the center of Skopje, was fired by her temporary employer, OSCE/ODIHR, because her visible appearance in a civil protest "might cause conflicts in their everyday communication with the Minister of Interior". The project for a church in the city centre was… a project of the Macedonian Government.

These organizations are financed by YOUR states, with YOUR tax money. They are present in our countries to help the democratic transition, the respect of human rights and the rule of law. But if even the international organizations are not able to stand against the authoritarian drift in a fragile democracy such as Macedonia, who will?

Please share this testimonial and ask your governments to take their responsibilities. Their staff should abide by the highest ethical standards abroad. Nothing less than what you would expect in your own country.

Sincerely yours,
All the independent journalists, activists, intellectuals, artists, students and citizens of Macedonia who believe in democracy!

This is Meri’s testimonial:

“On which side are you?”

I lost confidence in the state institutions long ago. I know exactly why, too - it is due to the deep penetration of politics in them. This is something that I have long accepted, and I believe that I am not the only one who has felt the division on “yours and ours,” “you and we,” “patriots and traitors,” “communists and fascists,” on her own skin. That is our society. Partisan and bipolar to the core. But I never thought there would be a time when I would feel on my own skin the politicization of an international organization, an institution that should be the pillar and foundation of human rights and freedoms! I felt it, and I have to admit, it hurt!

Recently, the representation of UNDP (United Nations Development Program) in the country was to organize a debate on domestic violence. A colleague of mine, a journalist, prepared an analysis of the media reporting on domestic violence and, due to him being away at that time, asked me, as a journalist who had followed the issue, to present instead of him. Nothing difficult, right? All I had to do was to prepare a few slides and present in front of the attendees. However, the Minister of Labour and Social Policy Spiro Ristovski was supposed to be one of the attendees. I had no problem with that, and why would I, but apparently someone else had.

So, when I sat down with my colleague and two UNDP representatives (I do not think their names are as important as the organization they represent) to agree on the debate, their first question was:
- Meri, you are known to use a little harsh language, you are very loud... so we would like to know if you have written anything against the Minister Ristovski?

A billion question marks were running through my head. What does the UNDP debate on domestic violence have to do with my stories about the Minister? I told them I did not know what the link between the two was, and if it was any consolation, I had not written anything in favor or against the Minister.

We arranged the details around the presentation, when 20 minutes later, the UNDP representative called and said:
- We discussed the issue, several levels will have to approve for you to present, so not to prolong this any further, we decided to do the presentation ourselves.

Alright. That is what they decided. But, at the same time, they called my colleague, the author of the analysis, and said:
- Look, if Meri gives the presentation, it could cause us problems. She is very loud, and you know, the Minister will also attend the debate... So, we do not want to get ourselves in trouble, we decided to hire a journalist who is less exposed in the public...

Not to drag this out further... The revolt and the lies grew to that degree that my colleague cancelled the engagement, the journalist that they wanted to hire instead of me declined, and I informed all the international institutions about the case, including the United Nations headquarters. I received an apology from them, but also from the UNDP representative who “did not know I was that offended.”

No, I was not offended by an international organization at the highest level not considering me worthy to present on domestic violence in front of the Minister Spiro Ristovski. I was solely disappointed by the staff of the international representations in the country. I understood only that a big part of them are similar to the state institutions - politicized and divided to the core, to a degree that they had forgotten what their primary goal was - the protection of human rights and freedoms. The right to publish information in favor or against the Minister, and the right to make a presentation on domestic violence in front of him! The right to be loud and to advocate my views if I firmly believe in them, without being punished for so doing! The right to agree with something, without being labelled as ours or theirs. So, I ask the UNDP - on which side are you and do you believe in the basic human rights? As for me, I’m nobody’s, which is possibly the reason for the bravery to clearly state my opinion.

I do not know if the debate on domestic violence took place and how it went. But, after everything I saw, I do not believe that the ultimate goal of the debate was to find ways to solve the problem. If that were the case, the first thing they asked me would have been about domestic violence, not about the attendance of the Minister Spiro Ristovski and my texts regarding him.

Once again, for the umpteenth time, I felt unwelcome in this divided country. But this time it hurt a lot more because I witnessed with my own eyes how the international representations in the country have also entered the vortex of that division. Is there anything left in which we can wholeheartedly believe?

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